Head Games
by Nils Jansen
Summary: Imagines what would have happened if, along with Elizabeth Shaw and David, Meredith Vickers had survived the events on LV-223. Rated T for now, but may change to M at a later point.
1. Prologue: Blood and Rain

**Weyland Industries Headquarters  
Home Electronics Testing Facility  
San Francisco, California  
9 December 2090**

The notes committed to paper nearly two centuries ago, a relatively newer rendition of them resonated throughout the otherwise featureless listening space in which Peter Weyland's personal David 8 android stood. He did not feel compelled to move, but his hearing sensors bathed in the polyphonic acrobatics of a massive orchestra and soprano voice.

In learning about human culture, David had recently become acquainted with opera. He understood from the _libretti _that their creators intended to portray a range of human emotions. Unlike books, however, words typically touched the surface. The mixture of notes, played by many instruments, underscored more deeply the characters' feelings. He further pondered their authenticity in conveying human needs and desires. Could someone have a multitude of feelings towards the same person, moving abruptly from bitterness to tenderness? Even though he felt confused by the array of emotions portrayed in the final scene from the specific opera he had selected, David admired the ability of its creator to bring together multiple sound timbres, and somehow make them sound… is "harmonious" the word?

"David!" a sepulchral voice suddenly growled behind him.

Crisply, David turned to face his creator. "Father," he said. "I am becoming acquainted with another composition by Richard Strauss. His opera _Salome_."

Leaning on his cane, Peter Weyland inched towards David. "Turn it off. Now!"

David blinked quickly, trying to make sense of Weyland's scowl. "Of course," he replied hesitantly, walking to the room's control panel. He interrupted Salome's intimate moment with the gruesome trophy she had received from her stepfather: the severed head of Jochanaan, the holy man she desired. "I am confused, Father. This piece is by one of your favourite composers. Based on the 1891 play by Oscar Wilde, it premiered in Dresden on the 9th of December 1905…"

"I know all that, David. But this is not _noble_ music."

"It offended the religious authorities, Father. You went against the Vatican…"

"Anti-religiosity has nothing to do with it, David."

"I am sorry, Father. I am confused."

"It is music for lazy, decadent minds. It ends with fifteen minutes of an obsessed woman cavorting with a severed head. I don't care if it's a so-called holy man's head or not. In any case, _Salome_ is not the Strauss of _Heldenleben_. Of _Quixote_. Of _Zarathustra_."

David's perpetual blank smile changed slightly. "Don Quixote. _The Man of La Mancha_. Peter O'Toole was in that, too."

Weyland shook his head, looking to the side as he moved closer. "David. The _Prometheus _mission launches within six months. You will be the one overseeing things. You will be my eyes and ears. You cannot be me, however."

"Be you?"

Weyland grunted. "We have much in common. But perhaps that is the flaw of any creator, including the ones we humans have created over many aeons. You cannot like something simply because I do."

"Of course, Father. But, if it is any comfort to you, I enjoy _Salome_."

"Eh?"

"That is me being different. You say that I cannot like the same exact things as you, so that means you cannot like the same exact things as me. But it is still something by Strauss. I suppose this means we are the same, but different."

Staring at David, Weyland pondered his statement before making a grunt that sounded like a laugh. Looking up at the latest iteration of his company's handiwork, Weyland placed his free hand on the android's shoulder. "Even if you lack a soul, David, you are indeed my child." After weakly patting David's chest, Weyland slowly turned around and started walking towards the door. "You may start your music again once I leave. Just don't listen to it too much. You'll need a chaser for afterwards, just to clear your head."

"What do you recommend?"

"Some piano piece should work. Just pick something."

"Of course. Thank you, Father."

After the door closed behind the wobbly Weyland, David recommenced the final scene from _Salome_. Pondering Wilde's text from the point where he stopped, he wondered if love did indeed taste like blood. Certainly for humans, the android had an awareness of the dark red liquid's crucial role to life. Perhaps it was true for love as well, even though no one could see it. He heard humans talk about love all the time, with its multitude of meanings. David believed that there was something like love between him and his father. But what about a female and the severed head of a male? Wouldn't one whole human want another whole human, whatever the cost? After making her stepfather Herod feel pleased with the "Dance of the Seven Veils," couldn't Salome have just asked him to release the prophet Jochanaan, rather than have him decapitated? And why did Jochanaan act so rudely towards Salome, after she had him brought up and tried telling him things that sounded pleasant? Why was there so much fear among everyone, when really they could have tried to learn from each other?

The opera ended abruptly, with Salome's stepfather ordering her immediate execution. For David, this ending proved once again that humans possessed a peculiar interest in tragedy. As he pondered why people cried in real life, and sometimes sought solace in yet more tears, David browsed the lab's library of music. Upon encountering the name Frederic Chopin, David made the association between him and the kind of music his "Father" recommended. While Chopin specialized in piano compositions, none of the pieces seemed to have a story of some kind. There was only one exception, with the unassuming official title "Prelude No. 15."

Looking at the word in parentheses following the title, David assumed that the piece was about a meteorological phenomenon. "Raindrop," he clearly enunciated, pleased at the sound. David made the selection, and closed his eyes to re-imagine some of the days that made him feel ~17.5% less efficient than normal.

Thinking about the upcoming _Prometheus _mission, he wondered if the ship's destination would have raindrops, too.


	2. Allein was tut's

**Moon LV-223  
Zeta II Reticuli System  
December 2093**

In the aftermath of the recently reawakened Engineer's wrath, nothing remained alive in the dim and control room of his starship. In various parts of the control room, the bodies of three _Prometheus _passengers lay where the Engineer brutally beat them. They included Dr. Ford and Weyland's last surviving mercenary. After tearing off David's head, the Engineer killed Weyland himself by hitting him with it.

Depending on one's perspective of David, however, two objects gave the room some semblance of life. They included his head and body, the latter laying supine on the floor just meters away from the former, its arms and legs moving with no apparent purpose.

While David pondered the practicalities of trying to continue the mission without the rest of his body, he also felt what he assessed as regret over what had transpired in the control room of the Engineers' ship. Nonetheless, he believed that his father had achieved more than most humans could dare to dream. Amassing the kind of financial security that could sustain a large nation, fulfilling many personal visions, traveling to a world never visited by his kind before, and (as had become more common) living past the century mark. For Weyland, the only thing that remained elusive was immortality. David wondered to himself: _Was that the "nothing" Father referred to in his final moments?_

Considering his current predicament, David mused on the disagreement he had with his father over Strauss' _Salome_. More specifically, the concept of "poetic justice" kept looping through his memory. He knew that his notion came suspiciously close to superstition, which his designers had not programmed into his highly logical system. And yet, it also made perfect sense to him. After all, given his understanding that the opera addressed the taboo theme of necrophilia with the severed head of a holy man, he found the music incongruously pleasing in its balance of complex orchestration and melodiousness. And now, David's own head had been separated from his body, and used by the Engineer to kill Weyland. Had he perhaps enjoyed _Salome_ too much? Was the price of David's enjoyment his mobility, as well as the life of the man who had given him life… even though this same man warned him against the opera with the severed head?

The temptation to contemplate such questions remained strong for David. How one could juxtapose horror and beauty so compellingly within the same creation. Whether or not justice could be meted out by an unseen entity, whether in the form of a concept like karma, or of an anthropomorphic divine creator. Like the one in whom Dr. Elizabeth Shaw believed, even with her own conditioning to think rationally.

Upon remembering Dr. Shaw, David began to think about her discovery of the cave painting back on Earth, and how it brought them to this new world with its many unfamiliar terrors and wonders. While he reflected on the way in which variations of the former had overtaken the dwindling crew of the _Prometheus_,David found it more compelling to focus on the latter… "pleasure" as it might be known to his remaining flesh and blood comrades, wherever they might be. The time he spent alone prior to reviving everyone onboard the _Prometheus_, where he learned new things and found enjoyment in the texts, sights, and sounds that humans had created to share with others. His discovery of the Engineers' gossamer star map, its brilliant blue hues and peaceful stellar movements illuminating the same room where chaos and death had just recently visited. The connection he had made with Dr. Shaw during her stasis, which compelled him to continue visiting her dreams during the voyage to this world.

The deep bond David had developed with Dr. Shaw made him hope for her well-being. Despite his role in bringing death to the man with whom she engaged in coitus, and in her becoming pregnant with an unwanted offspring whose physiology differed radically from hers, David hoped that he could somehow get in contact with Dr. Shaw. That he might see her again, despite the fact that he could sense the ship's rumbling as it ascended the moon's atmosphere. Perhaps Dr. Shaw had been able to return to the _Prometheus_, which would somehow be able to catch up with the ship and dock with it. Perhaps the crew would board the ship, destroy the ampoules, and collect David's head and body for repairs. And then they could continue the journey to learn about the creators of his creators, and perhaps even why they would want to destroy the very creatures they had created.

_Allein was tut's? _David recalled from near the end of the profane Strauss opera. What mattered? What mattered if that did not happen? Dr. Shaw's mission of discovery had become one for David as well. He had learned about another world, along with more of the idiosyncrasies and contradictions of human behaviour that could emerge unpredictably in distressing situations. Was it, perhaps, how they somehow managed to persist, even as the odds of success became increasingly slim? Was it something that, at some point, David himself might need to develop if his heretofore unwavering patience began to…

A massive thud, followed by a sustained quaking that lasted several seconds, interrupted David's thoughts. His head and body, along with the remains of Ford, Jackson, and Weyland, moved involuntarily around the control room.

When it ended, David could no longer hear the engine of the ship.

Amidst the quiet, David could sense the ship's rapid descent as it returned to the surface of the LV-223.


End file.
